Twitter Blocking Access to Users Who Aren’t Logged In as an ‘Emergency Measure,’ Elon Musk Says

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Netflix touted strong momentum for its push into advertising, claiming subscribers on its ad-supported tier nearly doubled in the second quarter of 2023. However, the streamer said, advertising revenue in Q2 was still not material in the context of its overall business. The company announced Q2 earnings Wednesday. Overall, Netflix netted 5.9 million new paid subscribers, amid its broader crackdown on password-sharing violators. On the ad front, “While we continue to grow our reach — ads plan membership has nearly doubled since Q1 — it’s still off a small membership base, so current ad revenue isn’t material for Netflix,” the company said in its quarterly letter to shareholders. “Building an ads business from scratch isn’t easy and we have lots of hard work ahead, but we’re confident that over time we can develop advertising into a multibillion-dollar incremental revenue stream.”

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino has forcefully disputed a Bloomberg article maintaining that a “surge” of harmful content on the Elon Musk platform has spooked advertisers.

Twitter has started sharing advertising revenue with select users with large followings, with some of the initial $5 million in payouts going to far-right influencers.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Elon Musk’s Twitter has been accused of failing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in severance to laid-off workers. Now, under a new ad-revenue sharing program, the company just doled out millions to high-profile Twitter users, including controversial right-wing figure Andrew Tate and left-leaning twin brothers Ed and Brian Krassenstein. Twitter announced the ad-revenue sharing program for creators, initially on an invitation-only basis, on Thursday. The company said eligible creators will be paid a share of ad revenue starting in the replies to their posts. “This is part of our effort to help people earn a living directly on Twitter,” the company said in a blog post about the program.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Twitter was experiencing unexplained technical problems Wednesday, as key features of the Elon Musk-owned social network appeared to be not working correctly. Problem reports with Twitter began spiking around 10:30 a.m. ET on July 12, according to uptime-monitoring service Downdetector. In the U.S., user-reported errors for Twitter’s website and app shot up to more than 7,100 complaints by 10:36 a.m. ET. Of the user reports, 50% were related to the Twitter; 43% were related to the website; and 7% were problems associated with the server connection, according to Downdetector. One of the main problems users reported was the inability to see an account’s tweets from their profile page, at least on the desktop (web) version of the Twitter service. According to Twitter’s API status monitoring page, all systems were operational as of Wednesday morning.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Netflix is making it even easier for users to add a paid “extra member” to their primary accounts or migrate their streaming preferences to another household. Starting Tuesday (July 11), all Netflix members worldwide are able to port their profile from one account to an existing account. Previously, members were only able to transfer a profile to a brand-new account. “This was a much-requested feature from our members and we’re excited to roll it out to everyone,” a Netflix rep told Variety. The new capability expands on Netflix’s Profile Transfer feature, introduced last fall. The feature preserves all of an individual user’s personalized recommendations, viewing history, My List, saved games and other settings.

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino is throwing a little shade at Threads after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced his platform had crossed 100 million signups in less than a week.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The battle between Elon Musk’s Twitter and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta over the launch of Instagram’s Twitter rival Threads has taken a legal turn. On Wednesday, Meta’s Instagram debuted Threads, a text-focused social app designed to piggyback off Instagram’s infrastructure and user base. The app had more than 30 million sign-ups as of Thursday morning, according to Zuckerberg. In a July 5 cease-and-desist letter addressed to Meta CEO Zuckerberg, a lawyer representing Twitter said that Musk’s company had “serious concerns” that Meta “has engaged in systematic, willful and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.” The letter said that “Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information.”

As Twitter faces a significant new challenge from Instagram offshoot Threads, CEO Linda Yaccarino is defending her turf.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Should you ditch Twitter in favor of Instagram’s Threads — which looks quite a lot like a clone of Twitter? Meta launched Threads, a “conversational” text-centric app tied to Instagram, on Wednesday, a day earlier than expected. The internet giant sees an opportunity to take on Twitter, controlled by tech mogul Elon Musk, which has been beset by various technical and business issues since he acquired the company. “I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Threads post. “Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has unleashed its frontal attack on Twitter, the social network controlled by Elon Musk. On Wednesday (July 5), Meta’s Instagram launched Threads, described as a “text-based conversation app.” The app is available in Apple’s App Store for iOS devices and in Google Play for Android.

McKinley Franklin editor Elon Musk’s controversial Twitter takeover in October 2022 is facing more scrutiny after the Tesla CEO announced another shift to the social media platform this Saturday. Musk implemented a “temporary limit” on the amount of posts users can view per day, defined by varying limits depending on users’ subscription status. Musk had previously come under fire after acquiring Twitter for laying off around 80% of the company’s employees, reinstating once-restricted profiles and tweeting conspiracy theories. Musk’s controversial leadership of the site has left some users in search of another text-based social media platform. 

Lauren Jauregui is sharing her opinion after Elon Musk set viewing limits on Twitter. The former Fifth Harmony member feels that it’s not a “coincidence” that the Tesla founder is implementing these changes as the U.S. prepares for another presidential elections cycle.

 according to DownDetector. As of 1 p.m., there were over 7,000 outage reports regarding the website.Some users flagged issues that included being unable to retrieve tweets, or the error message, «Sorry, you are rate limited. Please wait a few moments then try again.» Rate limits increasing soon to 8000 for verified, 800 for unverified & 400 for new unverified https://t.co/fuRcJLifTnElon Musk, who took over the platform in 2022, tweeted around 1 p.m.

Charna Flam Twitter owner Elon Musk made an abrupt announcement Saturday morning: the social media service has instituted a “temporary limit” on the amount of posts that users can read. Verified accounts that have paid for a Twitter Blue subscription can view 6000 posts per day, while unverified accounts — the vast majority of Twitter users — may only view 600 posts per day. Newly registered unverified accounts get even less at 300 per day, though Musk did not specify how old an account must be to qualify for that tier.To address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation, we’ve applied the following temporary limits:– Verified accounts are limited to reading 6000 posts/day– Unverified accounts to 600 posts/day– New unverified accounts to 300/day Musk explains that the guardrails have been created “to address extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation.” The announcement come a day after Twitter’s Friday action to block access to the website for anyone who isn’t signed in as a registered user.

the Minister of Culture has reportedly reached out to Twitter and Tesla head Elon Musk and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg to coordinate a fight at the historic Colosseum in Rome, Italy.The Post has reached out to the Italian Minister of Culture for confirmation.In response, Musk, 52, entertained the idea by tweeting, “Some chance fight happens in Colosseum.” Both tech moguls have been training with Lex Fridman, an Artificial Intelligence researcher who hosts the Lex Fridman Podcast, a podcast and YouTube series. He also practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu and holds a first-degree black belt.After Musk tweeted earlier this month that he would be “up for a cage fight” with Zuckerberg, the Meta CEO shot back by posting a screenshot of Musk’s tweet with the caption “send me location.”Zuckerberg’s team reportedly passed on the message to Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White, whose people contacted the Italian Minister.Italian government officials reportedly offered up the 2,000-year-old venue as a battleground for the historic cage fight.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Canva, the software company that hosts an “all-in-one visual communication platform,” announced partnerships with Warner Music Group and Merlin to let Canva customers use music clips in their designs. With the deals, Canva will become the first visual design platform to add commercially released music clips at the point of creation for content that can be shared across multiple platforms. Starting this fall, the libraries of Warner Music Group (including Warner Recorded Music and Warner Chappell Music) and Merlin will be available for Canva Pro, Canva for Education and Canva for Nonprofit customers to add music clips to their designs, with small teams using Canva for Teams to follow.

Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, is being criticized after declaring that the words “cisgender”and its abbreviated form, “cis,” are slurs that will be barred from the social media platform.The term, which refers to individuals whose gender identity matches their assigned sex at birth, has been viewed controversially by many of those to whom it refers. They argue that their identities should not be defined relative to transgender individuals.Musk made the declaration on June 20 in response to a tweet from James Esses, an Irish right-wing media figure, who claimed that transgender activists berated him with the word, which he both ideologically rejects and believes is a slur.Esses’s claim to fame is that he was expelled from a therapist training course after sending a public petition to his school, requesting they change how they view gender dysphoria to “safeguard therapy and counseling” for children.Esses now uses his social media channels to speak out against the idea of gender dysphoria and deny the concept of transgender identity, and advocates for bans on puberty and hormone blockers for children. “Yesterday, after posting a Tweet saying that I reject the word ‘cis’ and don’t wish to be called it, I received a slew of messages from trans activists calling me ‘cissy’ and telling me that I am ‘cis’ ‘whether or not I like it,'” Esses complained in a Twitter post.

Elon Musk somehow found himself a part of the story after it was reported that Starlink was used to communicate with the submersible. After Musk slammed the rumors, saying there was no connection, he found another reason to make headlines - challenging Mark Zuckerberg, who trains jiu-jitsu, to a cage match.It all started on June 20th when it began circulating on Twitter that Zuckerberg’s META has been working on an app that would be a competitor of the controversial site.

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have been scrapping it out in the social media ether for months and now they’re ready to do the business in a cage.